Palliser

The last site to check this year..it’s taken awhile to get in there. We’ve opted for the easy way – catching a ride with the Alberta Snow Survey flight and getting dropped about 200 m from the site.

Bad weather kept us from flying, but finally on Tuesday May 1st (Workers of the World Unite!) we left the Canmore helipad and flew under low clouds with light blowing snow over Three Sisters Pass into the Spray drainage. They dropped me off in the Upper Spray at about 845am and quickly went to work. The site wasn’t far. Nothing like the help of helicopters!

We’ve used helicopters every time to set up and check the Palliser site. We’re only able to check the site twice since we weren’t able to get on a flight going in this way in January. So in February, Barb Bertch, Ian Pengelly and Reg Bunyan (sans castor) skied to Palliser, while the Alberta Snow Survey flight dropped off the frozen beaver bait near the warden cabin. They set the site up on February 28th, with grand anticipation that there’d be a wolverine in the area. A month later, on March 30th, we checked the site. Jen Reimer, Cam Plewes and I were flown in, taking advantage of a flight from Canmore heading to the Talus Lodge to bring out guests. We were dropped off halfway to Talus. The weather wasn’t much different than a month ago. Low clouds, blowing snow…lot’s of snow back here in the Palliser…

So today I skied to the site for the final check. Once at the site, a good sign. The beaver bait was gone. Part of the barbed wire was in shambles, and looked like a wolverine visited. Close inspection and many intimate spins around the tree found one barb had a clump of wolverine-ish looking hair. I collected the sample, looked carefully to make sure I didn’t overlook any left hair anywhere, then began taking down the barbed wire and baling wire wrapped around the tree. Took 4 snow depth samples around the site: 165, 175, 188 and 215cm! (nearly took my entire probe). Lots of snow, and all measured within the forest. By 1000am I was skiing down valley towards the Palliser warden cabin.

+2 degrees C on the porch. Fresh  snow in the trees. Hard to believe it’s May. Made a cup of tea, snacked on some Lu “Noir Extrême” cookies I left behind a month ago, but didn’t’ have time to sample, then closed the cabin up and started skiing to Mt Shark.

Amazing what a month can do to snow. No snow bridges left so had to wade across the Spray. Lots of ducks hunkering down in the bends of the river, later realizing this may be a predator avoidance tactic after seeing what appeared to be a Northern Goshawk make a bombing run over the river, hoping to scare up some food. Further down the trail, in the woods, grizzly bear tracks in several spots. Soft deteriorating corn snow, sinking-up-to-knees-type snow, in several spots along trail. Not a day too early to be ending our trips on skis on a quickly changing snow base.

Back at the lab I went through the photos to see whether a wolverine did visit the Palliser site. This is what I found…

Then this…

and then what!

And finally…

The view from the porch